


The Loves of Oliver Queen

by Izzyface



Category: Arrow (TV 2012)
Genre: Billy Malone - Freeform, F/M, Fluff, McKenna (mentioned), No Dialogue, Oliver/Helena (mentioned), Oliver/Laurel (mentioned), Oliver/Sara (mentioned), Susan Williams - Freeform, and she wore red, happy endings rock, introspective & reflective, spoilers 5X08, tooth-rotting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-03
Updated: 2017-01-07
Packaged: 2018-09-06 05:24:17
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,702
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8736496
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Izzyface/pseuds/Izzyface
Summary: Ollie Queen was a boob man. Oliver Queen is not. Set post-5X08.





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I woke up thinking of this. LOTS of text the first chapter, but no dialogue... I just needed to get Oliver out of my head so I can do some actual work-work.

Ollie Queen was a boob man.

In his teens and early twenties, Oliver’s younger self often...over appreciated women with beautiful breasts, and those who liked to show them off. Laurel and all the girls he’d cheated on her with were all examples of that.

After he’d found himself back at Queen Manor, found himself back inside of another life, Oliver couldn’t help but think of Ollie and the fuck up he’d been. At 22, Laurel had been the one good thing in his life, even if he couldn’t see it. Had he never gotten on the Gambit with his father, the best decision he could’ve made would be marrying her. But he did get on the Gambit, and the five years on and off of Lian Yu did happen, and he was different now. Ollie Queen was dead, and in his place was Oliver.

Oliver Queen was not a boob man.

Yes, he liked them. Any man who claimed to not like them was lying (even gay men could appreciate them - according to Curtis and Paul), but as he matured Oliver realized there was more to a woman than how she looked. It took going to hell and back for him to fully appreciate Laurel, but even then it was too late. By that point, he’d changed too much. From the moment he’d stepped on that yacht, his whole future changed.

There were things about each of the women he’d been with since he returned to Starling City that stuck out in his mind. The team liked to call Helena his ‘psycho ex-girlfriend’, but initially she’d been just as lost as he was. Yes, she had the boobs and there was a definite physical attraction, but he found himself wanting to fix her. It had been misguided and unplanned, and ultimately fell apart (see: Laurel), but his intentions were good.

McKenna was just a ploy. He liked her, but he knew from the beginning it was never going to lead anywhere. The questions she asked on their only date were questions he wasn’t ready to answer - not after being back less than a year (less than six months, really). Oliver barely trusted anyone at that point, much less a SCPD detective tasked with unmasking the vigilante. He regretted she got caught up in his battle with Helena and was hurt. He was sorry she’d lost her career and mobility, and never intended for that to happen, but there was never a possibility of anything real with McKenna.

Of course, he couldn’t reflect on the many loves of Oliver Queen without Laurel Lance. She was… she was. Over the course of his life, Laurel had been a lifelong friend, his first love, the girl he lost his virginity with, the face that got him through the hellish nights on the island. And one of his biggest regrets. Seeing her again in that faux reality made Oliver realize how much he missed her. He’d been telling the truth, when he said he could have been happy there. At least for a little while - and that perfectly summed up how he felt about Laurel.

He’d always been happy with Laurel, at least for a little while. But she was never enough for him. It was why he cheated. Not that he blamed Laurel for his cheating in the slightest, as that was absolutely his character flaw. As much as she loved him, Laurel never required him to grow up. She wanted to him to grow up, or would ask him to mature, but Ollie knew that Laurel would always come back no matter what, so what was the point in changing? Any chance of a relationship with Laurel died the night that Tommy did. He and his best friend long had the code "bros before hos" and Oliver broke that when he slept with her before the Undertaking. That Tommy died knowing about he and Laurel right after Oliver’s betrayal was something he carried with him daily.

Life at Queen Manor with Laurel would have been nice for a little while. It would have been safe and happy. Eventually, though, he would have grown bored and wanted more. It was that feeling that led him looking for a different woman when they were together before. When they were their younger selves, Laurel was the safe choice... but a little boring. Oliver never doubted that he loved her, but it was never passionate or consuming. So he kept looking for that feeling, despite the fact that he was 'with' Laurel.

Then there was Sara. If Laurel was a regret, then what was Sara? Despite everything, Oliver couldn’t bring himself to regret Sara. Other than Dig, Felicity, and Barry, there was no one that he trusted more than Sara. He would never have survived the island without her. What he did regret about Sara was their romantic entanglement. If ever two people should not have been involved, it was them. As young adults, they hadn’t known what they were doing. Mostly it was just random hook-ups behind Laurel’s back, just good sex, that didn’t hurt anyone. Where Oliver messed up was inviting her on the Gambit with him.

He knew that Sara wouldn’t agree, however. Being on the Gambit was what led her to Nyssa, and Sara loved Nyssa with her whole heart. He didn’t have an explanation for what they were doing in Starling City when she returned after Nyssa released her from the League. The only thing that made sense to him was that they were both lonely and he was trying to make his new feelings for Felicity fit in his world. Sara understood, though. That was the thing about her - she just got him. She always had, from the time they were teenagers. They were the same, which was why they would never work. But the sex was phenomenal, at least.

Finally, he was at Felicity. What could he say about Felicity? They were… unfinished. Unwritten. When he’d confronted Diggle!Arrow, it was actually seeing Felicity and the fern in the Bunker that made him remember. The memories he had at that moment, slipping the engagement ring on her finger… that’s what struck him the most. But also, later, at the Manor, when Ray Palmer walked away and she just turned in a circle because she didn’t know anyone else at his engagement party? It warmed his heart, because it was such a Felicity thing to do. Before they were together, she hated accompanying him to events because she always ended up left alone and feeling awkward. When they were together, and he had to accompany her to Palmer Tech outings she complained for the same reason, but he always watched as she charmed everyone in the room. But there was always a moment or two when she was alone and seemed to flounder. She told him once that you could put the geek in a thousand dress and Jimmy Choo’s, but inside she would always feel like that fourteen year old who wasn’t asked to her school formal.

From the moment Oliver allowed himself to love Felicity, he knew he would love her for the rest of his life. She was what he’d been waiting for. The consuming passion he'd been looking for with Laurel was there with Felicity in spades. He was attracted to her - her boobs, her ass (oh god, her ass), her legs… - to every part of her. But as he’d told her once, her superpower was her brain. He’d met sexy women who were smart before, but Felicity made being smart sexy as hell.

The reason why he’d never panicked when he realized he was in a faux reality is because he knew Felicity would rescue him. Since she had come all the way to Nanda Parbat, seduced him, and then tried to poison him, Oliver had no doubt that Felicity would do anything to save his ass. When it became clear that Felicity hadn’t been kidnapped (alien-napped?) along with him, Sara, Digg, Ray, and Thea, then he figured she was back in their reality trying to get him back. He’d told her when they first returned to Star City more than a year ago that she was his backup, and he’d meant it. This past summer, when it was just the two of them protecting the city Oliver never worried about his safety. Felicity had his back. The other stuff between them would work out in time.

What he loved (appreciated?) most about Felicity was that she wasn’t a damsel in distress. Yes, he’d had to save her more than once, but Felicity wasn’t one to sit around and wait for help to come. Barry had told him she and Cisco and had rescued the others aboard the Waverider back in the 1950’s by storming the hold where they were being tortured. _And it had been her idea_. He could clearly remember her protecting herself and Curtis against Double Down in the old bunker. She was a fighter, and she didn’t walk away. Yes, she’d taken a hiatus from the team after she found out about William, and he didn’t hold that against her… but she was the one who didn’t leave. Sometimes it felt like he was punishing her for that. She stayed, she stood by him, and she pushed him to be a better person everyday, and he kept pushing her further and further away.

Oliver wouldn’t lie to himself that he wasn’t hurt by her decisions concerning their personal relationship. He also understood why she made those choices. He’d hurt her very deeply when decided to abide by Samantha’s request to not tell anyone about William, and then it seemed like everyone in their life knew before her. In the months since, he tried to put himself in her shoes - what if she’d kept a life-changing secret from him and then all of their friends knew before he did? How would he feel then?

He couldn’t deny that he likely would have reacted the very same way. He’d like to think he wouldn’t have called off their engagement, but he couldn’t say. It wasn’t like he forgot to tell her about picking up groceries or taking some cash out of the ATM. He’d purposefully omitted a child, and then lied for months about visiting him. Then he’d asked her to stand by him as he dropped out of the mayoral race, like all of the political wives did on TV when their husbands admitted affairs. Oliver hated himself for turning her into one of those women. A woman who was defined by their husbands scandals. Felicity was too smart, too successful for that to be her legacy.

So after he’d poured his heart out to her in front of their friends and a JOP, she’d still left him. She’d used words like ‘never’ and ‘broken’ and ‘can’t be fixed’ and Oliver felt like he was dying inside. But he respected her wishes and gave her the space that she needed. He was still giving her the space that she needed. Even though it felt like every day she was slipping further and further away from him. When she’d told him she wasn’t sure if the thing with the detective was something real, Oliver felt pain cut straight through him. Pain like he hadn’t felt in a long time. Physical pain he could handle. But this pain? It was like she returned the ring and walked out of his life all over again.

Maybe it was time to fight for her. When he’d said goodbye to Laurel on the steps of Queen Manor, he was saying goodbye to Ollie Queen for the very last time. Laurel was his past, but Felicity was his future. His present, and his future. It was time that he remembered that, but also time that he reminded her of that. Felicity was the great love of his life, and he was hers.

But first, what the hell was he doing with Susan Williams?


	2. Part 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Part 2/2... Although there are still some ideas. But maybe just more drabbles than full-on chapters.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So. Much. FLUFF.
> 
> Some of the events of the 5x09 definitely are included in this… the beginning with Felicity’s awkwardness and Oliver’s date with Susan, and then the attack on Curtis that lead to his hospitalization. This picks up at that point.

 

* * *

 

Oliver tried not to listen as Felicity and Billy argued. He could see from the tension in her body that things weren’t going well for the detective. He’d known her for too long to know what her expressions meant, especially combined with her raised voice. A minute later the detective stormed away. The other man stopped in front of him. “You better keep her safe, Queen.”

“What?” Nevermind, that wasn’t important. He needed to get to Felicity. “With my dying breath.”

“Good.” The detective left then.

Oliver slowly made his way down the hallway to the blonde. She looked… relieved? “Hey.”

Her smile was tense. “How much of that did you hear?”

“Not a lot. Everything okay?”

Felicity studied him. The blue-green dress she was wearing made her eyes look darker. “What’s your definition of okay? He asked me to come with him. Billy wanted me to let the police handle Prometheus, and to come hide at his place until this was all over… I told him I couldn’t because he knows I work for, well… you—other you, Green Arrow you, I mean. We argued. Fanboy or not, I guess he wants to protect what he considers to be ‘his’ or whatever… why do guys do that, by the way? Think that they can just claim women? I belong to me, not to someone else. I belong to me…” She saw his look and cut off her babble, counted backwards in her brain, and finished her explanation, “Long story shorter, we broke up but he’s probably going after Prometheus anyway.”

They broke up. They broke up… Oliver felt his heart squeeze. He stepped forward and pulled her into a hug. She smelled the same as always. Like lavender, vanilla, and a hint of sandalwood. It was home to him. “What do you need?”

“A pint of mint chocolate chip and I’ll be fine.” She sniffled against his chest.  “I couldn’t even call the guy my boyfriend, Oliver.”

“C’mon, we should tell Curtis and Paul we’re leaving, then stop at the store on the way to the bunker.”

“Thanks.”

Later, when they were at the bunker and Felicity had her ice cream, they had a moment of quiet. She was working on the computers and he was loading his quiver, waiting for someone to go after. They’d worked out this was related to the Hood, but everything about Prometheus was related to the Hood in one way or another. “You find anything?”

“Working.”

Oliver knew it wasn’t helpful to just stand there, so he took a seat at another computer station. “Is there anything I can do?”

“Oliver.” Her voice had an edge to it. “Stop. It’s going as fast as it will go.”

His reply was cut off when his phone vibrated. It was Susan. _Is ur friend okay? I thought you were coming back._

He had to deal with this _thing_ with Susan. It was… nothing. But he’d seen the expression of Felicity’s face earlier, he’d heard her call her that ‘hot reporter’ and he knew what Felicity sounded like when she was hurt. Oliver had hurt Felicity enough for five lifetimes. He hit the reply button and typed out, **_They admitted him to hospital. Attacked by throwing star killer. I’m at my office._ **

Susan’s reply was instantaneous. _No ur not. I’m at ur office. Went looking for you._

Fuck. _Where are u really?_

**_Stay there. Be there in 5 minutes._** Oliver stood and reached for his tuxedo jacket. Changing his mind, he dropped it back on the chair. “I have to… go. I’ll be back as soon as I can. Stay here, okay?”

“Hmmm.”

“Felicity,” he called her name. Oliver laid his hand on her shoulder. He waited until she looked up at him. “Stay here. This guy knows who I am. I need you safe.”

Oliver knew they both remembered the different times he’d said those words to her. He could feel the tension between them, but it was something to be dealt with later. They were on the precipice of something, but it needed to wait.

“I’ll be back soon. Stay, okay?”

The blonde nodded. “I have work to do.”

“Thanks.” He smiled down at her. “See you.”

Susan was sitting on the bench outside his office when he arrived. She was still in the dress from earlier, staring down at her cell phone. “Hey.”

She smiled when she looked up at him. “Hey.”

“Sorry, I was…” He hadn’t thought of a lie to tell her. “With Felicity.”

“Oh.”

“It’s not what you think.” This was the problem with being with someone who didn’t know about the Green Arrow. “She and Curtis are close. They worked together at Palmer Tech, and they’re working on a start-up together. Then, she and Detective Malone argued at the hospital. I took her home after.”

“Oh.” Susan pursed her lips. She wondered if it was always going to be this way. Him and Felicity. And then anyone else they happened to date. “Why did she argue with Detective Malone?”

“I...what?”

“Why did she argue with Detective Malone?” The reporter studied him carefully as he shifted from foot to foot. “Did they break-up?”

“I’m not certain why they argued,” he responded. “Felicity is my friend, I thought you knew that. She was upset over Curtis, and then she argued with Billy, so I offered to take her home.”

“Why did you ask me to be your date to the Christmas party tonight?”

Huh? “Susan—”

“If you were on Lian Yu for five years, how do you know Anatoly Knyazev?”

Fuck. “Susan—”

“Isn’t he the leader of the SoIntsevskaya Bratva in Russia?”

“Susan—”

“You weren’t on Lian Yu for the entire five years, were you, Oliver?”

“Susan, stop. This isn’t an interrogation. That’s not why I came here.”

“Then why did you come?”

Oliver exhaled heavily. “I came to tell you I don’t think we should see each other anymore.”

“Because of Felicity,” she responded instantly. “That’s what you’re not saying. We shouldn’t see each other anymore because of Felicity.”

“No.” Oliver dragged his hands over his face. “Maybe. Look, I don’t know.” He forced himself to look at her. “What are you going to do with what you know about Russia?”

Susan smiled coyly at him. “That’s for me to know.”

“I have to go.”  

The brunette reporter nodded at him. “Okay.”

“I’m sorry,” he told her. “I wish it could have worked out differently.”

“Me too.”

When Oliver got back to the bunker, Felicity was still there; but so was Thea, John, Rory, and Rene. “What do we know?”

Felicity spun to face him. “Everything comes back to Justin Claybourne. The Hood—”

“—took him out,” the Archer finished. “Fuck.” Everything came back to the man he’d been five years ago. “The old Claybourne Pharmaceuticals building is still empty on the edge of town. Everybody suit up, let’s go check it out.” He lingered as everyone filed out until it was only him at his technical support. “You got a minute?”

“What’s up?”

“Are you okay?” he asked. “From earlier?”

The blonde nodded. “Yeah.” Felicity looked away. “It wasn’t real, by the way. You asked me that, one time. If it was real.”

“I remember.”

She looked at him then. “It wasn’t. Earlier tonight, at the party, I introduced him to Curtis and Paul… I couldn’t even call him my boyfriend. He was someone that I liked. I’ve been with him for six months and I kept waiting to feel more. But I realized at the hospital, that I was never going to… you know.”

“Yeah, I do know.” Oliver rubbed the back of his neck. “When I left, it was to go see Susan.”

“Oh. She seems nice.”

“She’s not,” he replied. Felicity’s head shot up. “Nice, I mean. And she knows about Russia.”

“You mean Isabel-Russia or…?”

He’d tried to completely block all Isabel Rochev related things from his memory. What a disaster that’d been. “Susan knows I wasn’t on the island the entire five years.”

“Oliver! How?”

“I don’t know,” was his response. “I’m not sure how she figured it out. But she knew who Anatoly was and about the Bratva—”

“What do you need me to do?”

That was his girl, always trying to help. Even when she wasn’t his girl. “See if you can get into her computer? See what she knows? _How_ she knows it.”

“See if I can make it go _poof_ ,” Felicity joked.

“That’s why you’re the best.”

“I am.” She glanced over to where the team was starting to assemble. “You should go. They’re waiting for you.”

“Yeah.” Oliver started to leave, but stopped himself. “When I get back tonight, can we talk?”

“We just…” The look on his face told her that their idle chit-chat was not what he had in mind as far as ‘talking’ went. “Okay.”

Felicity muted her side of the comms while the team went out to Claybourne Pharmaceuticals. She stretched her hacking muscles on Susan Williams home and work laptops, and was surprised to find the firewall was mildly challenging. It might have stopped someone who worked for the FBI, but not her. She was the best.

Susan hadn’t even bothered to mislabel her file on Oliver. It was right on her desktop, labeled ‘O.Q.’ for Felicity to open and dig through. The other woman clearly didn’t watch enough spy movies. She could have at least named it something else so it’d been a challenge. The team was on their way back, so Felicity copied the file onto her own computer and deleted it off of Susan’s. She’d be able to read through it later. The blonde briefly thought of replacing all the files in there with pictures of llamas and farting antelopes, but she was trying to be better than that. Besides, she wasn’t jealous. She _wasn’t_. Just because the reporter was attempting to blackmail Oliver and they were (maybe?) still seeing each other…

When the team returned, they looked bedraggled and down. She’d heard Evelyn’s betrayal on the comms. Rory and Rene seemed to be taking it the worse. Oliver approached and gave her what looked like ashes. “I need you to run a DNA analysis on those.”

“Okay.”

He turned back to the group. “Everybody stays here tonight. There are beds in the back. No one goes out alone until we figure out Claybourne’s next move. If he knows who I am, who Curtis is, then it’s safe to say he knows who all of you are.” Oliver turned towards the back. “I need to go make an appearance at City Hall.”

“Alone?” Felicity questioned. He’d just said…

“I can take care of myself,” he reminded her.

She stood from her chair. “No. You’re not going alone.” Felicity looked around him to find Thea who nodded in agreement. “We’ll go with you.”

This wasn’t an argument he wanted tonight. “Fine. I need ten minutes.”

While he was showering, Felicity busied herself with putting the ashes into the spectrometer. She showed Rory and Rene what to do once the first part was finished.

Oliver returned, his hair wet and tie slightly askew. “Let’s go.”

The blonde grabbed her purse and coat and followed her ex and his sister out of their bunker. She needed to go by the loft anyway.

\-------

Hours later, once they’d returned to the bunker and everyone was settled in for the night Felicity knocked on Oliver’s door. “Just a minute,” he called. When it opened, he was still pulling on a gray t-shirt. His blue plaid pajama pants hung low on his hips. “Can’t sleep?”

She tugged at the bottom of her ice cream cone flannel PJs. “Want to have that talk now?”

“It can wait,” he offered. “If you want.”

Felicity shook her head. “I’m ready.” She stepped inside when he moved. His room was sparse. He’d been living here since Palmer Tech had fired her and he’d insisted she move back into the loft. She wondered how he got away with that. Didn’t people wonder where Star City’s mayor lived? Did they all assume he lived with Thea? Or with her, still?

“I’m not going to see Susan anymore.”

“I want us to try again.”

They spoke at the same time.

“Say that again.” For the first time in _months_ Oliver let himself start to hope.

“You didn’t tell me earlier you weren’t going to see her again.” Felicity could see the love shining in his eyes. She’d never doubted that he loved her. But he’d stopped being so open about it.

“I’m not going to see her again. Whatever I was trying to do there was stupid.” He took a deep breath. “You want us to try again?”

The blonde nodded.

“What made you...why did you...I…”

“There you go, talking in sentence fragments. I’ve told you, that’s _my_ thing.”

His smile was happy. “Why?”

“I love you, Oliver Jonas Queen. I think I started to fall in love with you that first day at Queen Consolidated, when you told me that horrible lie about Deadshot’s laptop. I loved you even when you wouldn’t let yourself consider loving me. I loved you when I wanted to hate you.” Her voice had grown stronger the more she talked. “You’re _my_ always. I’m tired of pretending that you aren’t. I’m tired of...I could date five more guys just like Billy Malone, who are all perfect for me on paper, but none of them are you.”

“What about everything that happened?” Maybe he was a fool for bringing this up, but he had to know. Oliver had worked hard on being a partner, but he wasn’t perfect. “What about William?”

“William was never the issue,” she replied softly. “It was… No one wants to be lied to, Oliver. And I hated how easily you made that decision to send them away without even talking to me about it. It made me wonder how easily would you decide to send me away, or someday our child?”

His mind blanked at the thought of having children with Felicity. Since knowing William—and then losing him—he wouldn’t let himself consider the possibility of having children. But a little girl with her heart-shaped mouth, his hair, her glasses? Or a son that he could throw a football with, or teach to ice skate… Oliver wanted it. “I… couldn’t.”

“How do you know that?”

“Because I need you, Felicity.” He tried to clear the picture he’d created. It was time to focus on the here and now. “I need you like I need oxygen to breathe.”

Oh. Well then he had to say _that_.

“When you said you weren’t leaving this summer, all I could feel was relief. I can’t do this without you. I can’t do any of this without you. The Green Arrow, the mayor, Oliver Queen… all of those things are just half-baked ideas without you standing there behind me, believing in me. So even if you wanted to be with Billy, or some other guy just like Billy, I’d accept it because I have to have you in my life.”

“Oliver.” She wasn’t going to cry. She _wasn’t_. “I don’t want to be with Billy, or some other guy just like Billy. I want to be with you.”

“Yeah?”

Felicity nodded as tears spilled down her cheeks. “I want to be with you.”

“Marry me.”

“What?”

He turned and went to the green wooden box he’d pushed under his bed months ago. Inside was the ring she’d given back to him. “Marry me.”

“Oliver—”

“This is it, Felicity. You and me. I don’t want to wait another day for you to be Mrs. Oliver Queen. So, marry me, please?”

“Okay.”

“Okay?”

“Yes.”

He picked her up and swung her around the room. When they kissed, it was like coming home after being away for years. Oliver pulled back. “Go get dressed.”

“What?”

“Get dressed, I’ll wake up the team.”

“Oliver, it’s after one.”

“We’re getting married right now.”

“How?”

“I’ll take care of it.” Oliver turned her toward the door. “Get dressed. Wear something red.”

“Red?”

“You look beautiful in red.”

  
  



End file.
